


in a new light

by hoosierbitch



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Aliens Make Them Do It, Community: kink_bingo, M/M, Mind Control, Other, Porn, Pregnancy Kink, Sounding, Tentacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-22
Updated: 2010-06-22
Packaged: 2017-10-10 05:48:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/96263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoosierbitch/pseuds/hoosierbitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wanted Spock. But not like this. (Okay,  IT IS TENTACLE PORN. ANGSTY, SMUTTY, NON-CON TENTACLE PORN. THAT IS SECRETLY ALSO A LOVE STORY).</p>
            </blockquote>





	in a new light

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [В новом свете](https://archiveofourown.org/works/762448) by [Galadriel (kerigma)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kerigma/pseuds/Galadriel)



> Written the tentacle square on my [](http://community.livejournal.com/kink_bingo/profile)[**kink_bingo**](http://community.livejournal.com/kink_bingo/)  card! Thanks to my lovely flist, and especially [](http://smokexscribbles.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://smokexscribbles.livejournal.com/)**smokexscribbles**. Y'all are the best enablers _ever_.
> 
> THERE IS NON-CON IN THIS FIC. IN CASE YOU DID NOT SEE THE ARCHIVE WARNING. LOTS OF NON-CON. 
> 
> YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. TWICE. 
> 
> SOME PEOPLE DON'T THINK THERE IS ANY LOVE STORY IN THIS STORY, SO IF YOU HAVE TO HAVE THAT, SKIP THE FIC.
> 
> YOU HAVE NOW BEEN WARNED AGAIN.
> 
> IF THERE IS ANY OTHER/BETTER/LOUDER WAY I CAN WARN FOR THIS FIC, LET ME KNOW.

It should have been a routine scientific mission. The scans of the caves hadn’t detected any life signs, no significant heat signatures had registered, and Jim had wanted to get out of the heat on the surface – the planet had three suns, and all of them seemed to be glaring right at him. So he’d decided on a brief side-trip into the caves, and Spock had followed him.

In retrospect the fact that the sensors picked up _nothing_ should have tipped them off that something was wrong. Something in the stone was blocking their signal, cutting them off from the Enterprise, from any hope of help.

The tunnels were dark and quiet. Jim breathed a sigh of relief as soon as they got a few hundred feet down, finding their way by the faint light on their scanners. The surface of the planet was about thirty degrees above Terran norms, the caves substantially below. “You don’t have to stay here,” he told Spock, who was practically shivering. “You can go back up. I’ll come out in a few minutes.”

“It would not be prudent to leave you on your own,” Spock replied stiffly. “You have a statistically improbable propensity to get into situations that significantly impede your ability to function.”

“Aw, how sweet,” Jim said with a smirk. “I love it when you get all sentimental, baby.” Jim’s private goal (that he documented very carefully in his supplemental logs) was to get Spock to roll his eyes at least twice on every away mission. One down, one to go.

The real problem was that it took Spock just a bit longer to respond than it should have. Jim was getting more adept at reading Spock’s silences and small gestures, and the pause – the pause meant something.

“You really are worried about me,” he said, a bit quieter. It was nice, to know that they were getting past their rocky beginnings. Nice to know that Spock didn’t resent Jim getting promoted over him, didn’t resent having to follow such an inexperienced captain. Kinda sucked that Spock didn’t trust him to be on his own, but Jim – Jim would take whatever he could get. And be grateful for it.

Spock sighed. And looked away before he answered, back up the tunnels, towards the surface and the boiling heat that reminded Jim so acutely of the brief time he’d spent on Vulcan. “I will admit,” Spock said slowly. “That my interest in your continued wellbeing is not entirely due to my concern for your ability to function in your capacity as captain.”

“Then what – what capacity _are_ you referring to?” Jim asked. And a shiver ran up his spine while he waited for Spock to answer. His throat tightened, breath frozen in his lungs. It was too cold. Too dark, too close in the caves. And in that split second before Spock opened his mouth, something cold and slimy wrapped around Jim’s right ankle. “What the _fuck_ – ”

In the next second it slid up his leg, twined around his calf – and then it tightened its grip and _pulled_. Jim lost his footing and fell, scrambled to find a handhold in the rock but just ended up scraping his hands on the rough ground as he was pulled deeper into the cave. Spock was following him, reaching for his hand – but by the time he caught up, it was too late.

They both lost hold of their scanners. It should have been too dark to see what was happening. If the creature hadn’t been fucking _glowing_.

It was huge – it filled up the tunnel, a mass of writhing tentacles. Each one was covered in suction cups. “Please tell me I’m not being felt up by a fucking _octopus_,” he hissed, grabbing his phaser and pointing it at the creature. It emitted a faint blue light from somewhere in its center mass, so that’s where Jim aimed.

“Communicators are down,” Spock informed him.

Jim powered up his phaser. “I am commanding you,” he said, voice as steady as he could manage with the tentacle around his leg slowly moving up his thigh. “To let me go. I am a representative of the United Federation of Jesus _fuck_ \- ”

It moved frighteningly fast. Tentacles of all sizes slid over his body – under his pants, up his sleeves, around the hand that was holding the phaser, inside his mouth. He didn’t want to die like this but he was beginning to think he might not have a choice in the matter.

Spock shot it. Jim saw the light of the phaser before a tentacle slid over his face, and then smelled the acrid burn when Spock set the phaser to kill. He heard muffled thumps, after that, and when the tentacle over his eyes moved away he saw Spock fighting his way out of the thing’s grasp. It only sent two tentacles after him. The rest were exploring Jim’s body.

And that was the best word he could think of to describe it – the creature had no visible eyes, but it rolled its tentacles over every inch of Jim that it could reach. They ranged in size from pencil-thin to thicker than his arm, and all of them were cold, all of them were slimy, and it – it felt – it felt _good_.

As hard as he fought, as angry as he was, he couldn’t deny that – that it had been a long time since anyone had touched him so delicately. So curiously. And his body – traitor that it was – responded.

They slid over his cock. The first one, the one that had wrapped around his ankle, was exploring his groin, cool and slick against his skin. Two more slid over the front of his slacks, pulsing and tightening as they wrapped around his waist.

He started to get hard. Helpless and bound, his body manipulated against his will – he reacted to the sensations.

Spock retrieved his phaser from the ground and approached again. Two of the tentacles that had been holding Jim’s right leg detached to fend him off. Jim opened his mouth to shout a warning and the tentacle pressed between his lips. Between his teeth. Writhed against his tongue, tickled the back of his throat, the suction cups pulsing against his flesh and then retracting.

He bit down. Of _course_ he bit down, didn’t matter that the tentacle creature hadn’t actually harmed them yet, he was hard and hating it and he wanted _out_, wanted to feel the burn of too many suns on his skin, wanted to go back in time and hear what Spock had been about to tell him. He bit down and every tentacle around his body tightened.

He felt the breath leave his body. Felt his lungs scream as his ribs were compressed, felt the bruises blooming under his skin. The tentacle in his mouth retracted.

The one between his legs pressed against his hole. And began to slide inside.

It felt like hours before the creature loosened its hold enough for him to draw oxygen back into his body. Enough time for Spock’s face, colored ghost blue by the faint light, to start to swim in front of his eyes.

“Spock,” he gasped, as soon as he had enough air to speak. “Please – ”

He wasn’t sure what, exactly, he was asking for. Spock was already doing everything he could to regain his phaser, to fight against the tentacles restraining him. He didn’t know what he was asking for until Spock started to talk to him. “I’m here,” he said, voice steady even though Jim could see his muscles straining. “I am not leaving you.”

The seams of Jim’s uniform ripped and the tentacle that had been teasing his hole started to slide further inside. He could feel each individual sucker rubbing against his rim. Feel them attaching to the flesh inside of his body and pulling, pulsing, and then releasing their hold to press further inside.

He didn’t break eye contact. Even when he felt a second tentacle press against the first and push its way in. Even when it found his prostate and wrapped itself around it. Even as his cock reached full hardness and started dripping with precum, he didn’t look away from Spock’s face, Spock’s lips repeating words he couldn’t understand anymore, his body reaching towards Jim with every ounce of strength he possessed.

He came. Minutes later. One tentacle pulsing around his prostate and another one pushing impossibly far inside his body. With nothing even touching his cock. He tried to fight back, tried to regain some control of his body – his attempts were useless. And trying to hold it back just made it more powerful.

He’d never been immobile during an orgasm before. He wanted to move and couldn’t, couldn’t move his legs or hips or hands, couldn’t throw his head back, couldn’t thrust forward – his cock jerked helplessly and his come spilled on the cave floor.

And as he came, curious tentacles wrapped around his cock. Squeezed him painfully through the aftershocks, past the point of pleasure and well into pain.

The tentacles inside of him kept moving. And another tentacle, the smallest he’d seen yet, pressed against the slit of his dick. He’d never played with sounding before. Never even had to have a catheter inserted. It shoved itself inside of his cock and the caves echoed with his screams.

He wasn’t prepared for how full he’d feel. How hypersensitive every nerve in his dick could get. How painfully it burned with each new inch it shoved inside of him. Had no idea that he could get hard again so quickly.

His cock rose again within minutes. And the whole time, Spock was watching him, Spock was watching Jim’s goddamn body betray him.

He didn’t lose it until he felt another tentative pressure against his hole. And then the quick, uneven sensation of suckers catching on the rim of his hole as a third tentacle slid inside of his body. It was thicker than the other two. The friction was unbearable. The pressure was impossible. He didn’t understand how his flesh hadn’t torn with each pulse of the tentacles.

They never slid back out, they just kept pressing in. He could feel them wriggling inside of his body. He wondered, for one insane moment, if Spock could see them moving in his stomach.

When the third tentacle breached him, when the one inside of his cock started to twist around, he let go. And came a second time, screaming because his blood was racing with pain and anger and sensations he’d never encountered before, sensations he didn’t understand, his body was being fucked and used and worked relentlessly. And throughout the entire ordeal, Spock didn’t look away.

He came. The tentacle in his cock retracted a moment too late and Jim convulsed against the tentacles that were tight around his chest, bruising around his ankles, clenched down painfully on the ones deep inside of his body. It was the most painful orgasm of his life. The suction cups rubbed against the delicate flesh inside of his cock.

“I’m here,” he heard, when he was brought back into his body by the sensation of the appendages inside of him beginning to retract, excruciatingly slowly. “I’m going to fix this.”

The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was Spock. Spock’s face shutting down. His eyes closing, his lips parting. His body relaxing. And then he saw Spock’s hand, pressing against the creature’s flesh in a terrifyingly familiar pattern.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Spock – Spock, I am commanding you to stop!” His protests went unheeded. Spock’s fingers pressed against the creature’s skin, and an instant later they both froze.

Jim struggled to get free but it was useless. He was still fully impaled, stretched around its thick girth. It hurt to fight.

He fought.

And then Spock’s eyes opened, and the tentacles inside of Jim slid out in one quick movement. He couldn’t stifle his scream. He felt – he felt terrifyingly open. His whole body was cold, but he – he could feel cold air against his hole. Against his flesh. He fought back the urge to cry.

“What did it say?” he gasped, waiting for the rest of the tentacles to release him. “What did it want?”

It let Spock go.

“It needs to breed you,” Spock said, voice dark and low and somehow scarier than anything else Jim had been threatened with that day. “It asked if you could take what it wanted to give you.” His eyes met Jim’s. The shadows distorted his face. Jim had to steel himself to not recoil from him. “I informed it that you could.”

“What did it do to you?” he whispered.

Spock smirked. And the creature started to move. Instead of letting Jim go, it pulled him further down the tunnel. Closer to its center mass. New tentacles spread his legs until his thighs started to burn, lifting him off the ground, and the tips of a few tentacles teased inside of him. And pulled his hole open as wide as it could go.

“Stop,” he whispered, muscles screaming, raw flesh being tortured, Spock moving closer and closer to him. “Spock. Please.”

And this time Spock’s voice wasn’t a comfort. This time, Spock gaze wasn’t supportive. Wasn’t a promise. It was _hungry_. “It will let you go,” Spock said, and a whimper escaped past Jim’s lips. “As soon as it is done with you.”

“This isn’t you,” he said, desperate to get through to Spock, _his_ Spock. “You have to break through whatever it did to you. Just listen to me, just listen to my voice – ”

Before he could continue something new pressed against his hole. “Stop,” he pleaded, pleading with Spock and with whatever intelligence existed in the flesh that was breaking his body open. Pushing relentlessly inside of him.

The new appendage was different. No suction cups. And it was bigger. A _lot_ bigger.

“It won’t fit,” he whispered. And it didn’t. It pressed harder, but Jim was already stretched to his limits.

The creature pulled back. And Spock quickly took its place. He reached down between Jim’s legs, and the tentacles that were holding him open twined around Spock’s fingers. “It has to breed,” Spock said again. “Has to fill you up with its seed, you’ll take it so beautifully – I told it how perfect you are. You’re so warm. And it _needs_.”

He could feel Spock’s skin brush against his.

He couldn’t remember the last time Spock had touched him. Couldn’t remember the last time anyone besides Bones had given him so much as a pat on the back.

Spock was – Spock was so close to him. He could feel the heat emanating from his body. And Jim was – he was so cold. From the damp air, from the chill of the creature’s flesh. Shivers worked their way up from deep inside of his body.

It was weak. Selfish. Stupid. He knew that, but he just – he couldn’t help himself. He leaned against Spock’s chest. Took comfort from him even though Spock didn’t know he was giving it. Spock was pressing four fingers inside Jim’s swollen hole and all Jim could think about was the warmth of Spock’s neck against his cheek. The rough fabric of Spock’s uniform, the dark blue before his eyes.

Then Spock pushed. And his hand slid inside Jim’s body, slick with the creature’s fluid, as confident in this movement as he was in everything he did. Spock’s hand spread his hole wide and then the tentacles kept him from clenching down on his wrist. He bit down on Spock’s shoulder as he spread his fingers wide.

He played with Jim for a while. Preparing him for the creature. Spreading his hand as wide as he could inside of him. Punching his closed fist deep inside of his body. And Jim bit his shoulder and kissed his neck and soaked in every bit of warmth, every bit of contact, closed his eyes and tried to pretend it was just them. Just him and Spock.

He closed his eyes and pretended that there was the slightest possibility that Spock would even _touch_ him, if he was in control of himself.

He felt sickeningly guilty. Because Spock didn’t have a choice in this anymore than Jim did, and it felt – it felt wrong to enjoy any of it. Spock’s fingers fluttered inside of him and he smothered a cry against Spock’s neck, bit into it. Spock stopped moving and Jim licked apologetically at the teethmarks he’d left behind. And this time, when he got hard – he let it happen. Rocked his hips against Spock’s.

Spock was hard.

Jim sobbed with relief, muffled against Spock’s neck, and thrust his hips mindlessly forward. He knew it wasn’t really Spock, knew it was the alien’s influence in his mind, but – but it was a familiar pleasure. His bare skin against fabric. So much more familiar than the flesh binding his arms to his side. And it – it was also different. From anything Jim had felt before. Because it was _Spock_.

He hid his face in the curve of Spock’s shoulder, against his flushed neck, and rubbed their cocks together. He was close to coming when Spock decided he’d been stretched enough and stopped.

He pulled his hand out and stepped back, and Jim fell forward before the tentacles caught him. Before it pressed back against his hole. And this time, when it pressed against the raw flesh of Jim’s hole – it fit.

Huge and smooth, bigger than Spock’s hand – Jim’s mouth fell open in a silent cry, pain shooting through his body. And Spock – Spock leaned against the wall and started roughly stroking his cock. Staring at Jim like he wanted him.

Spock was jerking off. Spock was watching him, and jerking off. His cock was out of his slacks, huge and dark, sliding through hands that Jim had spent countless hours fantasizing about.

His orgasm hit him like a tidal wave. Rushing relentlessly through his body. He couldn’t feel anything except the pain of his tired muscles involuntarily clamping down as the creature struggled to gain more ground inside of him. It felt like it was growing larger with each spasm of his muscles, each pitiful spurt of cum that Jim managed to shoot, each hoarse cry that echoed through the tunnels.

When it moved, it hurt. When it stopped moving – when it stilled inside his body, when it was the only thing holding him upright – it was so much worse.

It was coming. Shooting endlessly inside of his body – it had him plugged so tightly that there was no way for it to escape. He was being filled with cold liquid. _Oh, fuck_. He could – he could feel his stomach stretching.

He didn’t want to look. But Spock stepped forward, and placed one of his hands on Jim’s midsection. Warm and rough and Jim couldn’t help himself. He looked down. Spock’s hand on his swollen stomach. Rubbing the last of Jim’s semen into his skin.

“You’re perfect,” Spock said. He was staring at Jim’s stomach, his long, hard cock out of his slacks and fully erect. It took Jim a minute to figure out what he was saying. “A perfect incubator.”

“No,” he whispered, shuddering through the last of the creature’s contractions inside of his body, one last swell of – of what he’d thought was just more fluid, the same thing that slicked up the tentacles.

“It is almost finished,” Spock informed him. He pressed on Jim’s stomach and he groaned at the uncomfortable pressure.

The creature pulled out as slowly as it had gone in. And when it had only a few inches left inside of him, it stopped. And it started shooting, again, Jim could feel himself being filled, but – but it didn’t feel the same.

“Spock, what’s it – what’s it doing?”

Spock brought his other hand down between Jim’s legs and rubbed the rim of his hole. “I have to fuck you,” Spock said. And he started rutting against Jim’s body. Rubbing his hot, wet cock over Jim’s distended belly.

“No, you don’t,” Jim whispered, trying to ignore what the creature was doing to him. Trying to ignore the way his stupid fucking cock jumped when Spock touched him. “It’s just that thing influencing your mind,” he said. “You don’t – you don’t want me.”

Jim wanted Spock, yes. And Spock – Spock wanted Uhura. Or someone _like_ Uhura, since they had broken up. Spock wanted mature and reserved and sophisticated. Spock didn’t want Jim.

“Need to breed,” Spock said, his breath hot against Jim’s neck, hips pressing hard against Jim’s stomach, his hands bruise-tight on his hips. “Fill you up. I know you need it. You want me inside of you.”

It hurt. To know what Spock sounded like, mindless with need, hungry, seductive. It hurt to have Spock so close and know that he’d never get to have him like this again.

The creature pulled the rest of the way out of Jim’s body and all of the tentacles instantly retreated, leaving bruises in rings around his body, his wrists, his thighs. Spock’s hands around his waist were the only thing that kept him from falling.

He waited for the creature’s come to spill out of him – but nothing happened. Spock carried him up the tunnel, his hands around Jim’s waist. Jim wrapped his arms around his neck and tried not to pass out. He didn’t succeed.

When he came to, minutes later, he was on his back, stone cold and rough underneath his back. His swollen stomach was cramping painfully. His legs were spread and Spock was kneeling between them.

“We have to go,” he whispered. He tried to stand but Spock slammed him back down to the ground, growling deep in his throat.

“Need to come,” Spock told him. He sounded – he sounded desperate.

His cock was huge, burning hot and pressed tight against Jim’s chilled thigh. It was too dark to see Spock’s face clearly, lit only by the faint light of a dropped scanner somewhere down the tunnel. So he brought one shaking hand up to Spock’s face. Felt the furrowed brows, the clenched jaw. The familiar features of a friend distorted into a parody of desire.

Spock shifted position and began to slide slowly inside of Jim’s body. He was too loose to offer any resistance. Any friction. He shook even harder, mortifyingly defenseless. He tried to close his thighs, begged Spock to stop as coherently as he could.

“It plugged you up,” Spock whispered in his ear, stretched out over his body, the weight of his torso pressing on Jim’s stomach. “It wanted to stop its seed from spilling out of you.”

Spock shoved himself in deeper and Jim screamed when something inside of his body shifted. The creature had – had put something inside of him that had partially solidified. That kept its come from spilling out of him. That kept Spock’s cock from burying itself fully inside of his body.

The harder Spock fucked him, the more it hurt. The more he sobbed, the more his muscles shook, the harder his cock became. Because whatever the creature had pushed inside of him, whatever Spock was pressing against, was rubbing right against his prostate.

Spock was knocking the breath out of him. His lungs were empty, but the rest of his body – his ass, his stomach – were painfully full. “Gotta stop,” he pleaded, even as his cock rose and bumped against Spock’s stomach.

“Have to come,” Spock repeated, trying to push through the plug that the creature had placed inside of him, break it apart, to get rid of the creature's semen and make room for his own.

There was no way he could stop Spock. It wouldn’t be over until Spock satisfied whatever primal urge the creature had stirred within him. So Jim lifted his legs and wrapped them around Spock’s waist. Gave him the leverage he needed to make one more painful, violent thrust. One more thrust that broke through whatever barrier the creature had put inside of Jim’s exhausted body. He felt Spock's cock slide further in, the welcome heat of it deep inside his chilled body. Felt the broken plug start to slide out of him. 

It felt like gallons of come. That spilled out of him next. Cold and thick around Spock's burning cock. His insides cramped up, he curled up against the pain as much as he could – Spock just tightened his grip around Jim’s hips and kept going.

Jim swam in and out of consciousness. Spock fucked his wet, ruined hole, whispering his name, running his hands over Jim’s bruised body. Stroking his reluctantly hardening cock. And Jim – Jim was too tired to do anything but _take_. Take each thrust that scraped his bare skin across the floor, each thrust that brushed against his prostate, each careless kiss Spock pressed against his shoulder as he thrust all the way in and then stopped moving.

He was so close. So close to coming again, Spock pushing him closer to the edge with every thrust. He was twisting his hips, pushing his cock against the bruised sides of Jim’s hole, working every possible ounce of pleasure through the waves of pain that swamped him. So close that he didn’t realize what Spock was doing until his fingers were on his face. Initiating the meld.

It was nothing like it had been with the other Spock. No words, this time. No images. Just an overwhelming _need_. He felt Spock’s hunger, building up deep in his body, felt what Spock was feeling.

Gradually, Spock’s thrusts slowed. And Jim felt the brush of Spock’s mind against his.

He didn’t know how to close his mind. Didn’t know how to hide.

So he tightened his legs around Spock’s waist, thrust back against him even though it hurt so badly another choked groan slipped between his lips, tried to get Spock to start moving again. Tried to get Spock out of his mind. Out of the part of his mind Spock was approaching.

“Don’t,” he whispered.

_You don’t want me,_ he couldn’t stop himself from thinking.

He moved his hips, tried to milk Spock’s cock with his abused muscles, kissed whatever skin he could reach. He felt Spock begin to come. Felt Spock’s hips slam and then shudder against his thighs, felt his cock swell – then felt his hunger begin to fade.

Spock’s mind was calm again. _His_ Spock again. He brushed against Jim’s thoughts and Jim flinched away. Jim _fought_, with his body because he didn’t know how to do it with his mind. Spock’s mind touched his, carefully, and then left.

“You care for me,” Spock said, and Jim – Jim closed his eyes and tried to convince himself that he wasn’t crying.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. Sorry that he’d taken advantage of the creature’s influence on Spock, sorry he hadn’t been able to fight it, sorry that he was still hard as a rock. Spock was still inside of him. Slowly softening. His come dripping out of Jim’s hole.

“You do not need to be sorry,” Spock informed him, and Jim laughed. It sounded pitiful in the echoing cave.

“We should go,” he said. “Before it comes back for seconds.”

“I care for you,” Spock said quietly. “And not just because you are my captain.”

He met Spock’s gaze and tried not to look away. But there was no reason to pretend that he wasn’t humiliated, and violated, and weak. Spock’s hand, still hovering over his face, brushed against Jim’s lips as gently as his mind had brushed against Jim’s cowering thoughts.

Slowly, he pulled out. And Jim was so close to the edge – Spock’s fingers were on his mouth, Spock’s dick was brushing against his hole – he sobbed, and shook, and came. Spock kept one hand on his face and brought his other to his cock, he stroked Jim carefully through a dry orgasm that left him completely wrecked.

They cleaned up as best they could before leaving, and Spock retrieved one of the lost scanners. Jim couldn’t walk under his own power. Couldn’t even stand. So Spock put one arm around his shoulders, the other under his knees, and effortlessly carried him towards the entrance of the cave.

“It would be – I would appreciate it,” Jim said, voice catching with every step Spock took. “If you could – if you could keep the details private. Just – I don’t want everyone to know,” he said, as they got closer and closer to the surface. He couldn’t bear to have the crew know how helpless he had been.

“I will respect your wishes,” Spock responded, carefully stepping over a large rock. Jim bit his lip to keep from crying out. “But not because I believe that you have anything to be ashamed of. You are a courageous man,” Spock said quietly. And he let Jim look away, let Jim hide his face in the crock of Spock’s shoulder. “And I am honored to call you my friend.”

“I’m glad you came with me,” he whispered, when he felt could feel the heat starting to bleed down into the tunnels. “If you – if you hadn’t been there – ”

“Jim,” Spock interrupted. “I will always be there. No matter what happens.”

Jim closed his eyes and let Spock carry him outside, back into the harsh glare of three unfamiliar suns.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Need (the heat and light remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/384424) by [isabeau](https://archiveofourown.org/users/isabeau/pseuds/isabeau)
  * [Art for in a new light](https://archiveofourown.org/works/881543) by [nix_this](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nix_this/pseuds/nix_this)




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